Interview with Russell W. Hoover, 1983

INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: RUSSELL W. HOOVER
INTERVIEWER:
DATE:
PLACE:
MRS . MARJORIE MOORE
February 15, 1983
Bracketiville , Texas
(Jim Sweeney introduces)
JS: Now these two good folks are residents of Bracke~ille
who are very kindly taking me on an automobile tour of the
town and old Ft. Clark~ .
MM . So you're 84 years old . (Born 1899) When is your
birthday?
RH: December the 23 rd.
MM: So you were a Christmas baby. And you said you came
to Bracketville in 1889?
RH: In 1899.
MM: You were just a little fellow then. Where did you live
when you first came to Bracketville?
RH: On the side of the Water Department there . When we
first came here, we lived with an uncle.
MM: How much town do you remember when you first came?
RH: It wasn't much . It really was a dump town . You know,
it was a wild town, is what I mean . You could go down there
every Saturday night right there on Main Street there and
see all kinds of free - for-alls.
MM: See all kinds of street brawls?
HOOVER
RH: Oh yes.
(gap in the tape)
MM: Where was it?
RH: Up there where the other schools is built.
MM: What was it built of? Was it frame or log?
2
RH: It was wooden, frame, just like all these old country
schools.
MM: Just had 3 rooms. Did they have a high school, too?
RH: No, that was all in one . That was it.
MM: All in one.
RH: I think they only went to the lOth grade at that time.
MM: What's this house on this corner? Is this one of the
oldest houses?
RH: That's one of the old houses; was the doctor's house.
It really all belonged to that Mr. Peterson. He built that
church right there, too. He had that REA, where he used to
have his store then. Now it 's Peterson's. He was Danish.
When I remember him, long before he had that store , he just
had a little store down there. But he got his start pushin '
a cart. Peddlin'.
MM: Here in Bracke~ille?
RH: Pushed it and peddled stuff .
MM: What did he have on his cart?
RH: Well, you know, neck ties and different things like
that.
MM: Did he have pots and pans?
RH: I imagine he did.
HOOVER 3
MM: Do you remember?
RH: No. I never seen that. That was before my time. He
only had a little s tore down there when we came. We traded
with him.
MM: Did he just sell everything?
RH: Oh, a little of everything . That's what he was set on.
His deals. Little bit of ever:{thing . He sold hardware, just
anything you wanted.
~1: Did you have to pay cash every time you bought something?
RH: No. He gave credit to people. People were really
honest them days; not like people nowadays. Out there you
can shake hands and they'd say something-- UWell you just take
it for thatU--it would be that way.
MM : Did you pay your bill every month or did it go longer
than that?
RH: My daddy worked for the government over there. He
started working over there about two weeks after we came
here.
MM: Did your daddy work on the Fort?
RH: Yeah. He was a teamster. Before we came here, he was
a railroad man for the Great Northern that ran through Kansas
up to there.
My oldest brother and him worked on the same railroad.
They built those trusses across them rivers and draws and
everything for the railroad. My uncle used to be in the
services. Put 18 years in the service out here. That's a
long time before we come here. Fightin' the Indians and
HOOVER 4
RH : everything down here . The Mescaleros and everything .
MM: Life must have been kind of dangerous then .
RH : I t was rough.
MM: Did your uncle ever have any trouble with the Indians?
ill! : He fought those Indian s . He was mean.
MM : Was his house right here in this settlement?
RH: No . He lived way up on the hill. It's a l ready fell
down. It was an old pole house. Some native fel l er bought
i t lat er on . He got up and left here and went back to Ohio.
He rejoined the Army and went across in the second World War .
He retired at 69 years old. The oldest soldier to ever retire
in the Uni t ed States Army . I have some pictures of him some­where.
MM : He served in the Army until he was 69?
RH : Yeah .
MM: That's amazing . You were talking about your dad build-ing
trusses, and your o ldest brother . Was that for that
t ran s -continental rai lroad that came through Del Rio?
RH: No. I'm talkin' about in Kans as. Before we came here.
We had a farm back t here tha t mother and the girls --the older
girls worked the farm. And they worked on t he railroad . It
wasn 't too good them days. They'd either get too much money--­MM;
Did your dad bring you all down here?
RH: All down here. My uncle t ell in ' us he had a big ranch
and all that stuff. He just wanted to get us down h ere .
When we got down here , he was workin ' with the governme nt,
too.
HOOVER 5
MM: Was he a teamster, too?
RH: No. He worked in the pack trains. You know they had
pack mules in them days. And go out on the border with them.
He 'd already got out of the service and joined up with the
pack trains.
MM: So your dad then was a teamster.
RH: Yeah. He got a job as a teamster . $45.00 a month and
there was 11 of us in the family.
MM : Eleven! Which one were you? Were you the baby?
RH: I was the baby. I had one brother born here.
MM: When you worked on the Fort , were you a civilian em­ployee
or were you a soldier?
RH: I put 6 years as a soldier.
MM: You were 6 years as a so ldier.
RH: I put 3 1/2 years in there as a cavalryman and then I
transferred over into the veterinary service.
years in the veterinary service.
I put 2 1/2
MM: I thought we might drive up on the Fort in a little bit
and get you to tell us about some of it. But before we do
that, I wanted to ask you about some of these places. There
are an awful lot of vacant lots and pretty old houses here
and I just wondered if most of these lots were ever covered
or have there always been a lot of vacant lots?
RH: Some old people used to live there. The Fritters; Dan
Fritter used to live there.
MM: Was he one of the Fritters that had a saloon?
RH: Well, he's a brother to--Hancock was the one owned the
saloon.
HOOVER 6
MM: What did Dan do for a living?
RH: The Fritters and the Rosses owned the biggest part of
this town. He collected the rent, taking care of the rent
houses for his grandmother. I mean his aunt. You see, Mrs.
Fritter and Mrs. Ross were sisters. She was an old lady . If
you saw her you come around the back way. You never went in
her front door. You sat out in the back under those trees
and talked to her. Never invited in her house. There's a
lot of mystery there in that house. The old man disappeared .
When she died and everything and they were cleaning out that
house and they found a man's skeleton in a box in that house .
Back in a room that never was used.
They say that Miss Niemeyer, used to be one of the
saloon girls. He used to foo l around with her and old lady
Ross just got rid of him. That's what everybody said .
( laughter) That's where that skeleton was.
M}1 : Never thought of divorce; just bang!
RH: Stuck him back in there. They say that was why she
would never invite anybody in her house. My mother and her
was pretty good friends but she never invited my mother in
either. Nobody ever went in her house but one boy and that
was this one here. (picture?) There was 3 Moe boys. John,
Hancock, and Dan . John used to be judge here one time, you
know. I noticed he always went in the back way, too.
~~: Even on a co l d day?
RH: No.
MM: Was that down in the old Ross house, or the old Fritter
HOOVER 7
MM: house down around---
RH: That's one; there's an old rock wall. There's an old
place there that used to be the post office in there.
MM: How many post office buildings do you remember in
Bracketville?
RH: Four with this one, now.
MM: Four altogether.
RH: All 3 of 'em were pretty c lose together. You know the
one they moved from. Right across where the city's got
their tax business, that was one of 'em. And right across
the street there, on the corner, in the bottom of it was and
up in the top, they had their Woodmen of the World Lodge.
MM : I didn 't know there was ever a post office where the tax
office is. That was probably one of the first post offices
they had.
RH: Right there on the corner, yeah. When we come here,
that's where it was.
~1: (Speaks of a house) ... the old bugler's house. (not
useful without location) All kin folks owned this whole
block. Dudleys and the Goldmans. They claim that was an
old s t age stop once. I know where the old s tage stop was
and it was not that one.
MM: Where was the old one?
RH: Over at that old Fritter house. Back of this one.
They tore it down. Fe llow bought it, tore it down and built
him a new house.
HOOVER 8
RH: (discussion of sites . Of no use unless we know where
they are .)
A nigger fellow bought this p lace here. He died of a
heart attack a while back. He was well up in the money . He
had 3 ranches. That one out here that used to belong to
(Happy?) Shahan, he bought that one. Then he had one up at
the head of ? Creek and then one up in the Panhandle. He
had a reason for that money because two old white women had
raised him when he was a little old kid"':-raised him up and
put him in business.
MM: You don't remember his name, I guess? And he grew up in
Houston?
RH: They used to come up here a lot. Well acquainted with
them. They liked to go to Mexico when they come down here.
He was always afraid they'd bring something they weren't
supposed to bring because those old ladies used to drink a
little bit and they was liable to do anything.
M!-1 : (l<:ore tal~ about old houses. Mention of Elsie Sauer,
driving to school in a buggy with a little roan mare.) Mrs.
Sauer don 't know half of what I do because I was raised up
in Ft. ClarkI. I lived up there for awhile. That building
right next to where you've got that museum there, that old
kitchen, we lived up there.
MM: Now this is called Thomas Street now. So that's where
the old Stagecoach I nn was right back there. How did trave lers
get through here? Did they have to have their own wagons or
did they have--was the stagecoach before you or was it still
running?
HOOVER 9
RH: It run the other way. Rock Spri ngs , Del Rio , that way .
You see t hey used to go around through Spofford . We didn' t
have any highway through here.
MM: Oh. Then Spofford was more important than Bracke~ille.
Is t hat right?
RH: That was t he depot and everything over there.
MM: I knew they had the depot over there.
RH: I drove over there many times--with a team before they
was any automobiles. The first automobi le that I can r emem­ber
in Bracke~ille was an old Overland and one of them o ld­time
Buicks . The motor was up under the front seat and you
cranked it f rom the outside.
(More house talk)
~~: The travelers, when t hey came, did they stil l have the
s t agecoach when you first came, when you were little? Or
was that long before your time?
RH: No. They didn't have a s tage running t o different
towns at that t i me . We went by tra in. They carr i ed the
passengers on a stage, on a surrey , whateve r you called it,
to Spofford . They hauled ' em to Spofford . And then they got
on a train wherever you wanted to go .
MM : Somebody got off the train in Spoffor d and wanted to
get over here to Bracketville . How would you get here?
RH : Well, you ' d just have to wait 'til the stage come over
and pick ' em up. They went in the morni ng and t he evening ,
too.
~1: What did the stagecoach look like? Was it just like
what we see in t he movies?
HOOVER 10
RH: No. Not the one Henry Veltman used to run. Hr. Ve ltman
used to run the express and mail and everything.
ill1: What kind of a---
RH: Well, it was just like a surrey . You ' ve seen them old-time
surreys . They drive 2 horses to it.
ill1: How many people coul d ride in it?
RH: Oh you could get at least 6 .
¥ill: Have 3 seats or?
~q: Yeah , they had--the one in the middle, then the driver;
2 could ride up there with the driver. I guess they could
carry about 8.
MM: If it was cold, did they have any way of closing it in?
RH: They had curtains for it. Like the old Model T used
to have. ,-,
i s; "'~ /c-.ss (
MM : -Isinglass?
RH: Yeah .
ill1 : And canvas?
RH: Yeah. (More talk about old buildings.)
MM: We're on El Paso Street. Did that have anything to do
with El Paso?
RH: This road never did go all the way out. It went out
over the hill al l right but it didn't go to the highway. It
went straight through Brack~ille and out over the hill that
way .
MM : I like that old store , that Gonzalez store .
(More building talk) Did the Gonzalez family always
have this store , cedar building, on the corner?
HOOVER 11
RH: Yeah .
MM: And then they lived in this house right next door to it?
RH: Yeah . His daughter's still got the store .
MM: You r eckon this house is built of cedar, too?
RH : That ' s them pine boards . Better lumber than you have
now.
We lived in the second oldest house. We bought it,
l ived in it . Was an o l d cedar pole house stuffed with rocks
and slats and then plastered up with clay. Where the fire
station-- down at the city hal l . The firs t one that was built
here was a man by the name of Koch . And it was a one - room
house and it had small windows in there l ike that.
~~: About a foot square.
ffii : And that ' s the way he kept the Indians off of him. He
had many a fight with t hem Indians when they come through
here . They never did get him . He really stood ' em off .
They coul dn' t burn i t.
MM: Where was his house?
RH : Up t owards the hill there . Towards the woo l and mohair--­Of
course , the old house is not the r e any more. Somebody
took the rock . I t was real thick . There was no way they
were gonna knock it down or anything . Really built .
MM : And that was the f irst house i n BracketlVille . And then
yours , the pole house , was the second house.
RH: These old houses be l onged to the Rose family. That ' s
the old Olympia Hall where they used to have all them dances.
The soldier s used to come down here. A bunch of drunks come
along one night and wanted to dance and they wouldn ' t let ' em
HOOVER 12
RH: in and they went off and come back with a pistol. One of
the young guys, he'd just come in from the ranch--- '('more
house talk . ) They shot that boy. He walked to the door and
got shot. He was in the fourteenth cavalry. Point blank.
But he shot another shot in there and the Gonzalez boy , Joe,
was dancin' in there and it grazed him and knocked him on
his--he was lucky. Just split his scalp--his skin on his
forehead . He hit the floor and he laid down there; wouldn 't
get up because this guy was shoot in , in the whole dance hall.
MM: Was it the so l dier that got killed?
RH: No. No. Shot that Mexican boy . And there was an old
Mexican fella lived in that house over there. And he come
over with a shot gun; he was going to join in.
MM: Have there a l ways been more Mexican people than white
people in Bracke~ille?
RH: Oh yes.
MM: Always have been more Mexicans?
RH: About 90 percent now .
RH: (Hore building talk.) Since they got those fancy
government houses, all of 'em moved out of places like that.
MM: Did you Anglo boys ever come up here and dance or was
that just Mexicans only?
RH: That's supposed to be Hexicans only back in them days .
MM: Did the Mexicans and the Anglos kind of live in different
worlds?
RH: They lived up in this part of town; you hardly ever seen
any of 'em in the other part.
HOOVER 13
MM: They didn't mix much.
RH: No. They didn't mix . Not with them soldiers . The
soldiers didn 't l ike the Mexicans. (More building talk.)
MM: Now this is Thomas Street . Did the streets always have
these names. Do you remember when you were little?
RH: To tell you the truth, they didn't have any names.
MM : So it hasn't been too long---
RH : No , it hasn't been too long that they named these streets.
(More building talk.) Brackei:6ille 's got a lot of old
houses crumbling up here. I remember one time I was comin '
here, going to school, when I was just a little old kid , and
somebody 'd strychnined that old lady's dog. They were heatin'
a iron there and she asked me to put a cross on his head.
And that's a believe or not; it sure cured him.
MM: Burned a cross on his head and he got well?
RH: He did.
MM: Was that when you were blacksmithing?
RH: No . That's when I was a little old boy going to school .
Nobody e lse would do it.
MM: Just burned the hair off his head.
RH: Like you'd brand a cow . And I seen that dog many times
after that with that cross on his head.
MM: Just right above his eyes, eh?
RH: Yeah .
MM: I never heard of that. Had you ever heard of it before?
RH : Yeah.
it.
I' d heard about it but I'd never seen anybody do
MM: I was going to ask you about the old Baptist church that
HOOVER 14
MM: the Womens' Study Group bought. Am I right? Was it a
Baptist church? Was it one of the first churches? What
about some of the churches here in Bracketville? The old
Catholic church had to have been one of the first ones , I
guess.
RH: Happy Shahan ' s buildin' somethin ' here. That's where
the old Baptist used to be.
MM: Was that the same Baptist church that bought the old
chapel?
RH: Then they bought the old Veltman place . You see Henry
Veltman used to have a two-story house up here and had about
12 rooms. I should know; I've cleaned a many flue there.
I'd climb way up on top of some of them chimneys, 8 foot
high, and lean a ladder on it and take a rope and drop a
chain in a sack down in there and swab out the flues.
MM: And where was the Veltman house?
RH: Where the Baptist church is.
MM: Did they tear down the Veltman house?
RH: And built this church here.
MM: Is this the chapel that they brought from Ft. Clark1?
Or was that somewhere else?
RH: Didn't know they even brought any from Ft. Clark~. Joe
Thompson had his church down further way down there at the
bottom. We don't go to this one up here.
(More building talk.)
MM: We're here at the corner of First Street and Anne Street.
(More building talk.)
HOOVER 15
~~1: Where did most of the white people live?
END OF TAPE I. Side 1 .
TAPE I, Side 2.
(More building talk .)
MM: This is on the corner of Sweeney and Fulton . Are we on
Fulton now?
RH : Yeah. Old store right here .
MM: Corner'of Fulton and Brown. Was it a rock building?
RH: Have you ever been out to that old graveyard over there
by Mrs . Vondish (?)?
MM : Yeah , I ' ve been out there.
RH: Well, there used to be a spring come out from under
there.
}~, And it dried up, too. And this spring back here at the
corner, Beaumont and Fulton , that spring dried up, too? I
want to see where you used to fish off the bridge now. We're
goi ng down Beaumont Street, back toward the Fort. Is it going
to be mUddy in there do you think?
RH : No. I think---
MM: We're back down to El Paso Street.
RH: (Old building talk.) --only Mexican with the Negro
Scouts. (Turned off Beaumont on Quintle . Noisy.)
MM: This is the corner of Ross. Named for the old Ross
family?
RH: (poor recording.)
MM: Your pole house faced on this street? Green Street. It
says Keen now.
HOOVER
RH : That ' s who we bought the house from. And bought his
horse , too. Horse named Tony. Bay horse.
16
MM: Tell me about tha t old Jerusalem church there--temple. '
By you, close to your house.
RH: That be longed to that old gal that was supposed to be
the preacher down there . And she was foolin' around wit h
these Mexican boys a nd they got jealous . Burned i t up. Me
a nd another boy put i t out. We put it out with a t ub of
water. The mattress was burnin '. Dashed it in t he window
on the mattress and put it out. And the next time, we wasn 't
even home , we started home and we seen all that.
MM: Where did they get the lumber from t o build that Jerusalem
church?
RH: The Western Auto store used to be the movie theater.
(He mentions 5 or 6 saloons: the Blue Goose , the Buckets of
Blood, Otto S tadler , Mr . Nance 's, Hancock.) That' s why they
kept all those girls; lotta fights .
Old jail over there. I spent a little time in t here
myse l f. I wasn 't drinkin'. They just put me i n there. I
asked them for what? I was a s oldier. He said , "Well, to
keep you out of trouble. We 'll let you out in time enough
to go up for duty . " I said, "Well, that's crazy . If you
ain 't goin' to charge me, why turn me loose." About 6 : 30 in
the morning , they let me go back to the Fort .
MM : You were j ust in the wrong place at the wrong time,
weren 't you?
RH : (More building t alk.)
HOOVER 17
~~: Was the courthouse here when you came?
RH: It was here.
One time I knocked the devil out of a Mexican down there .
Johnny Sebes daddy was comin' along about the time they was
fix in' to take me over and lock me up. He come along and
said, "Oh no. You ain 't l ockin ' that boy up." I was a sol-dier
then, too . He said, "You just let him sit here on this
step and you go over there and bring me a bond ." $50,000
bond. He said , "He ain't going nowhere. He's a soldier."
MM : (More bui l ding talk.) There are still a lot of little
stores in Bracketville and they must have had a lot more.
RH: A garden over there--got caught raisin' marijuana and
they sent him home for a couple of weeks . I know he used to
sell it because I used to buy it. Not for me but for other
peop l e, when I was a kid .
,"'l"l' , .•
RH:
MM:
And he'd sell it to you for other people?
Yes ,
When the soldiers were here, did they use a lot of mari-juana?
RH : No , I never knew any of them fell as--it was mostly
these niggers , Those women foolin' around with those--dr i nkin'
and everything. They smoked marijuana .
MM: Were those girls young and pretty? Were they Mexican
girls?
RH: All kinds.
~~: Black girls, Mexican girls.
RH: Not too many whites . Now that's something I never did
understand.
HOOVER 18
MM: Were they pretty girls?
RH: Yeah , they was . Not old women . They were young women.
(Car travels someplace .)
MM: Did Brown and Root build these or did North American
Towns?
RH: North American Towns. The government didn't have al l--­MM,
I know North American Towns built this little shack-­security.
Was this the main gate to Ft. Clarkf? That was the main
road. And was this the bridge they had over the creek?
RH: They had a wooden bridge.
MM: They used to have a foot bridge down there.
RH: That's something you should have saw . You had steps so
far and then you ' d walk awhi l e and then more steps.
all the way up.
MM : Up to the Service Club here?
It went
Oh, the Officer's Club. I want to go down here to
Markham 's Bend.
RH: I helped build all these here sidewalks.
MM : Did you help build this ditch , this stone?
RH: Yeah. I layed concrete; some of it. There was a Mexican
fella, Juan. Now that's the old Quartermaster ' s Corral office
where they used to have all the mules . All these walls back
on the other side were stalls and all the way down the other
way .
V~ : And those slots built into the walls--for ventilation?
ffii: Yeah. Right over each stall.
HOOVER
MM: When we first came, there was a tin roof over all of
this.
19
ill!: Back in them days , when we was here, it had a shi ngl e
roof. With tin, with all that hail we used to get, them mules
wouldn ' t have stayed in there five minutes.
~~: So they COUldn 't have the tin roofs ' til after the mules
were gone .
RH: A lot of people think that was put there for guns but
it was ventilation for those mules.
MM: This old tin bui l d i ng wasn 't here, I guess, first , was
it?
RH: This wasn't here . They had another where they kept the
feed a nd salt the animals got here. Hay and everything was
right in the midd l e of this place here. And a l l around here
it had hay sheds. All around they had stalls but the wagons
and different things here.
MM: What was the hay shed built out of?
RH: Two by sixes .
MM: This old tin bui lding, it was here?
RH: Yeah . They used that for--I remember this old man , he
had a 50 gal lon barrel and he ' d put? (poison?) in there and
he had oats up on top of that in a tin. Them long tail rats -­you
' ve seen these o l d barn rats--they'd get on that tin--in
the morning you ' d have 8, 10 dead rats in there. He had about
that deep of wat er in t here and of course they drowned. He
was named Baxter.
Now all that, where them buildings are now, that was all
wood yard . Had a man in there. Had an electric saw in there
HOOVER 20
RH: and I've cut 20 cords of wood every day .
MM: We've still got that old saw wagon in the museum. Was
this the old blacksmith shop in here?
RH: Used to be a filling station there.
MM: Filling station?
RH: Yeah . Back of here used to be the old laundry. Before
they built that one up there. Somebody r emodeled it .
MM: Where was Morgan's Bend? Was it here or---?
RH: Behind that house there. I've seen the water here go
up to the ceiling right here. People built these houses down
here, they don't know that. Three or four cords of wood
down along the creek bed. It took the men about a month t o
get all that wood back.
MM: They used the wood in all those mess halls and kitchens,
didn't they? All those wood stoves .
RH: In the quarters. Heat the water.
MM: Did they have a wagon that carried the wood?
RH : Every day. A nigger driver guy, Dan Hall--all day long
he'd haul. The troops hauled their own wood.
MM: Ri ght here was Mulligan's Bend.
RH: Right over there is where the creek was.
MM; I've seen some pictures of Nulligan's Bend where it
looked like the ground just sloped down and---
RH: On the other side, yes . People used to drive cars and
wagons in there. All the people that drove cattle through
here to Spofford to ship 'em, watered there.
MM: You could just drive your wagon through the creek and
HOOVER 21
MM: across the creek there .
RH: The government had a back gate here where they come
across just below there. Right in the bend there was kind of
deep--come way up in the wagon then drop off a little p lace
about that deep and it would go deeper after you got off of
that.
MM: So you had to be pretty careful where you drove.
RH : You come up around the side with them little old Mexican
mules. Mexicans used to drive them freight wagons through
there. We always come back through there going to Spofford;
dip ' em up a barrel of water . Take it to Spofford. Spofford
didn't have any wat er.
MM: That's what I've heard, that there isn't any water under
the ground over at Spofford.
RH: If you got a glass of water in the restaurant they had
over there, you paid a nickel for it.
MM: What did they call the restaurant?
RH: Brown News.
MM: And this was all wood yard where the town houses are
now. Was this still part of Mul ligan's Bend ?
RH: Yeah . All down there where it straightens out and gain'
back up that way. This thing--Ft. Clark#~ when they come
here, they cut back this way and changed the river. It used
to go way out that way. They went and cut another ditch down
through here and changed the river over this way more.
M}1: Was that after Brown and Root left?
RH: After they come here.
HOOVER 22
~ill: Was it Brown and Root that changed the river?
RH: That's right. They ' re the ones that bought this p l ace.
MM: Bought it from the government. And you worked for Brown
and Root?
RH : Yeah.
MM: How were they to work for?
RH : O. K.
HM : They were a ll right?
RH: Didn't pay nothin' but---
MM: That's what I heard. They didn 't pay very much.
RH: I went out and worked on his ranch in Beaumont for a
year and 4 months. He's got a summer home up there at Con
Can . Way up there on the Frio.
~ill : I guess you saw in the paper where George Brown died.
RH : Henry Brown used to live up there. That used to be
Colonel Scale's. I don't see they got any Scales name on it.
I don't know what they call it.
MM: They call it the Patton House because General Patton,
they said , lived there. Is that right?
rui: I thought they called Patton one of those barracks down
there, Patton Hall.
~ill : Well , they've got a Patton Hall and then they've got
the Patton House.
rui : I guess you couldn 't put all them colonels and generals
names up there because there were a lot of them lived up
there in that corner house.
J.1M: I guess they figure that Patton was a bigger name than
HOOVER 23
MM: Scales was.
RH : Col. Sibley lived there, too. They don 't have none of
that . That was the meanest son of a gun I ever saw. He was
the one got rid of all these niggers, somehow .
MM: He's the one that moved them off of the Fort.
RH: He was mean .
~M: He's the one. Sibley. The Seminoles were supposed to
have lifetime rights, weren't they?
RH: There was 4 of 'em, that's all they give the lifetime
rights to over there. Phillip, and William and Adam , Randy
Grayson(?) . Them's the 4 they let stay down there. Course
they were old and they wasn't going to stay down there after
al l the people moved.
~1: Were there houses or buildings along the creek here? No,
because you had water down here, didn 't you? You had high
water. So they didn 't have bui ldings along the creek along
here.
RH: No . All this was flooded plumb up to that new laundry
they built way up there.
MM: Did you ever do anything in the old motor pool here?
RH : No. I spent a ll my time right up there in that rock
house. I was there 29 1/2 years.
MM: That's right, you were in the old Commissary Building.
Let's go up that way.
RH: I tried to find some of them writin ' s up there but you
know pe'ople don't leave them old markin 's (?) in there. When
they start buildin' that thing down below there , where we had
HOOVER 24
RH : our store below. \'Ie had a few things up there but on
this end we had the clothes department, where they issued
the clothes out. \'lay on top, they had the Quartermaster's
office.
MM : So at this end of the old Commissary--did they call it
the Commissary Warehouse?
RH: No. That was the Commissary. We had a whole lot of
stuff stored on this side. That's divided in there, if you've
ever been there. A lot of the storage was back here . Al l
the way back. And we had the cold storage back here . That
was my specialty , cold storage .
MM: I've seen that meat locker with the big meat hook. And
that's where you were , eh?
RH: I had all that heavy work to do down there. 375# fores
(beef) down there. You wonder how a fella could pick them
up and--you see they just put them on that p latform behind
and we had to carry 'em in .
MM: You had to carry them in. How did you lift them?
RH: I just picked ' em up and lifted.
MM: It's a wonder you didn't break your back .
RH: I was a strong man back in them days .
~lM: I think your son, Ben, is about the strongest man I
ever saw . I guess he gets it from you. I've seen him pick
up a rock that weighs 250#. Just pick it up like it was
nothing.
RH: Those hinds , I ' d just kinda stand ' em up on the point ,
stoop down and lean it over my shoul der and just go on.
HOOVER
ill!: They wasn't light, them big old beef.
~~1: I don't know how you did it.
25
RH ; They'd buy that prime beef. The government don't buy
this old watery young stuff, yearlings. They want prime
beef.
MM: Could anybody that lived up there, the officers, go down
and buy meat down here?
RH: They didn't buy no meat here. There was another place
they bought the meat at. The troops got their meat out of
here. They could buy sausage, like Vienna Sausage or any
that was put up in a package. They could buy that. The
soldiers that were married, not the single guys. The only
thing the single guys could buy in here was cigarettes.
MM, Now the clothing. Did they have clothing to sell?
ill, : No. That was issue.
MM: What about bakery goods?
RH: That's your bakery shop right over there. That one right
across the road there.
MM: The stone one?
RH: Yeah. The one behind the front one here. That's the
bakery. But that's not the old bakery. That was the new
bakery. They put all them new fangled--the old ovens was all
brick. Way behind where they got all the offices up there.
That used to be a platform down there. You come around here
and back up to it. That's where I took in all them groceries
and all that meat and everything in there. Butter, eggs,
everything like that. I had charge of all that.
HOOVER 26
MM: When I first came, there was a roof those chains held
up, wasn't there? A little platform. A cover?
RH: I used to have an old brindle dog. Every morning I
stopped my little pickup in front over here. That old brindle
dog'd come back here because them people'd leave the meat
just here and go on to Del Rio. There wasn't somebody watchin'
it. Why, I had to come early that morning--that dog would
beat me around here--bo~ I come around here, there better
not be no dogs around here. Cats, either. Around that meat.
Not with him. He wasn't a big dog. He was a scrapper.
MM: He wouldn't bother that meat?
RH: Oh no. He wouldn't touch it.
MM: Is it true that this was a laundry building?
RH: That's right. My wife's two sisters worked in here and
my niece she worked in there. There were 3 girls. Anna,
Laura and Rose--that they all worked in that laundry. And
then Laura's husband worked in there. All out of the same
family.
~m: Tell me about the stables here. The stables were a lot
bigger than they are now, weren't they?
RH: They pulled down a whole lot of them. They fixed all
these fancy stalls up and hired these people to---
~ili: The Army didn't have--those weren't the old Army stalls?
RH: No. They were open. It had a roof on all right, but
they--on both sides were open.
MM: What kind of a fence did they have here?
HOOVER 27
RH: They used to have a pipe f ence, first. No . First
they h a d cable run through the posts like they use on these
well drills.
END OF TAPE I , SIDE 2
HOOVER, RUSSELL W.
Biographical, 1,3-5
BracketiVille,1-3,5-17
INDEX
Ft.Clark¢,3,8,18-27
This interview, done i n a moving car, was difficult to
transcribe. Lack of site identification of old houses,
stores, churches, etc., will be distressing for anyone
researching early 20th century Bracke~ille.
However, an image of Bracke~ille and of Ft. Clark; of
that period does emerge.

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: RUSSELL W. HOOVER
INTERVIEWER:
DATE:
PLACE:
MRS . MARJORIE MOORE
February 15, 1983
Bracketiville , Texas
(Jim Sweeney introduces)
JS: Now these two good folks are residents of Bracke~ille
who are very kindly taking me on an automobile tour of the
town and old Ft. Clark~ .
MM . So you're 84 years old . (Born 1899) When is your
birthday?
RH: December the 23 rd.
MM: So you were a Christmas baby. And you said you came
to Bracketville in 1889?
RH: In 1899.
MM: You were just a little fellow then. Where did you live
when you first came to Bracketville?
RH: On the side of the Water Department there . When we
first came here, we lived with an uncle.
MM: How much town do you remember when you first came?
RH: It wasn't much . It really was a dump town . You know,
it was a wild town, is what I mean . You could go down there
every Saturday night right there on Main Street there and
see all kinds of free - for-alls.
MM: See all kinds of street brawls?
HOOVER
RH: Oh yes.
(gap in the tape)
MM: Where was it?
RH: Up there where the other schools is built.
MM: What was it built of? Was it frame or log?
2
RH: It was wooden, frame, just like all these old country
schools.
MM: Just had 3 rooms. Did they have a high school, too?
RH: No, that was all in one . That was it.
MM: All in one.
RH: I think they only went to the lOth grade at that time.
MM: What's this house on this corner? Is this one of the
oldest houses?
RH: That's one of the old houses; was the doctor's house.
It really all belonged to that Mr. Peterson. He built that
church right there, too. He had that REA, where he used to
have his store then. Now it 's Peterson's. He was Danish.
When I remember him, long before he had that store , he just
had a little store down there. But he got his start pushin '
a cart. Peddlin'.
MM: Here in Bracke~ille?
RH: Pushed it and peddled stuff .
MM: What did he have on his cart?
RH: Well, you know, neck ties and different things like
that.
MM: Did he have pots and pans?
RH: I imagine he did.
HOOVER 3
MM: Do you remember?
RH: No. I never seen that. That was before my time. He
only had a little s tore down there when we came. We traded
with him.
MM: Did he just sell everything?
RH: Oh, a little of everything . That's what he was set on.
His deals. Little bit of ever:{thing . He sold hardware, just
anything you wanted.
~1: Did you have to pay cash every time you bought something?
RH: No. He gave credit to people. People were really
honest them days; not like people nowadays. Out there you
can shake hands and they'd say something-- UWell you just take
it for thatU--it would be that way.
MM : Did you pay your bill every month or did it go longer
than that?
RH: My daddy worked for the government over there. He
started working over there about two weeks after we came
here.
MM: Did your daddy work on the Fort?
RH: Yeah. He was a teamster. Before we came here, he was
a railroad man for the Great Northern that ran through Kansas
up to there.
My oldest brother and him worked on the same railroad.
They built those trusses across them rivers and draws and
everything for the railroad. My uncle used to be in the
services. Put 18 years in the service out here. That's a
long time before we come here. Fightin' the Indians and
HOOVER 4
RH : everything down here . The Mescaleros and everything .
MM: Life must have been kind of dangerous then .
RH : I t was rough.
MM: Did your uncle ever have any trouble with the Indians?
ill! : He fought those Indian s . He was mean.
MM : Was his house right here in this settlement?
RH: No . He lived way up on the hill. It's a l ready fell
down. It was an old pole house. Some native fel l er bought
i t lat er on . He got up and left here and went back to Ohio.
He rejoined the Army and went across in the second World War .
He retired at 69 years old. The oldest soldier to ever retire
in the Uni t ed States Army . I have some pictures of him some­where.
MM : He served in the Army until he was 69?
RH : Yeah .
MM: That's amazing . You were talking about your dad build-ing
trusses, and your o ldest brother . Was that for that
t ran s -continental rai lroad that came through Del Rio?
RH: No. I'm talkin' about in Kans as. Before we came here.
We had a farm back t here tha t mother and the girls --the older
girls worked the farm. And they worked on t he railroad . It
wasn 't too good them days. They'd either get too much money--­MM;
Did your dad bring you all down here?
RH: All down here. My uncle t ell in ' us he had a big ranch
and all that stuff. He just wanted to get us down h ere .
When we got down here , he was workin ' with the governme nt,
too.
HOOVER 5
MM: Was he a teamster, too?
RH: No. He worked in the pack trains. You know they had
pack mules in them days. And go out on the border with them.
He 'd already got out of the service and joined up with the
pack trains.
MM: So your dad then was a teamster.
RH: Yeah. He got a job as a teamster . $45.00 a month and
there was 11 of us in the family.
MM : Eleven! Which one were you? Were you the baby?
RH: I was the baby. I had one brother born here.
MM: When you worked on the Fort , were you a civilian em­ployee
or were you a soldier?
RH: I put 6 years as a soldier.
MM: You were 6 years as a so ldier.
RH: I put 3 1/2 years in there as a cavalryman and then I
transferred over into the veterinary service.
years in the veterinary service.
I put 2 1/2
MM: I thought we might drive up on the Fort in a little bit
and get you to tell us about some of it. But before we do
that, I wanted to ask you about some of these places. There
are an awful lot of vacant lots and pretty old houses here
and I just wondered if most of these lots were ever covered
or have there always been a lot of vacant lots?
RH: Some old people used to live there. The Fritters; Dan
Fritter used to live there.
MM: Was he one of the Fritters that had a saloon?
RH: Well, he's a brother to--Hancock was the one owned the
saloon.
HOOVER 6
MM: What did Dan do for a living?
RH: The Fritters and the Rosses owned the biggest part of
this town. He collected the rent, taking care of the rent
houses for his grandmother. I mean his aunt. You see, Mrs.
Fritter and Mrs. Ross were sisters. She was an old lady . If
you saw her you come around the back way. You never went in
her front door. You sat out in the back under those trees
and talked to her. Never invited in her house. There's a
lot of mystery there in that house. The old man disappeared .
When she died and everything and they were cleaning out that
house and they found a man's skeleton in a box in that house .
Back in a room that never was used.
They say that Miss Niemeyer, used to be one of the
saloon girls. He used to foo l around with her and old lady
Ross just got rid of him. That's what everybody said .
( laughter) That's where that skeleton was.
M}1 : Never thought of divorce; just bang!
RH: Stuck him back in there. They say that was why she
would never invite anybody in her house. My mother and her
was pretty good friends but she never invited my mother in
either. Nobody ever went in her house but one boy and that
was this one here. (picture?) There was 3 Moe boys. John,
Hancock, and Dan . John used to be judge here one time, you
know. I noticed he always went in the back way, too.
~~: Even on a co l d day?
RH: No.
MM: Was that down in the old Ross house, or the old Fritter
HOOVER 7
MM: house down around---
RH: That's one; there's an old rock wall. There's an old
place there that used to be the post office in there.
MM: How many post office buildings do you remember in
Bracketville?
RH: Four with this one, now.
MM: Four altogether.
RH: All 3 of 'em were pretty c lose together. You know the
one they moved from. Right across where the city's got
their tax business, that was one of 'em. And right across
the street there, on the corner, in the bottom of it was and
up in the top, they had their Woodmen of the World Lodge.
MM : I didn 't know there was ever a post office where the tax
office is. That was probably one of the first post offices
they had.
RH: Right there on the corner, yeah. When we come here,
that's where it was.
~1: (Speaks of a house) ... the old bugler's house. (not
useful without location) All kin folks owned this whole
block. Dudleys and the Goldmans. They claim that was an
old s t age stop once. I know where the old s tage stop was
and it was not that one.
MM: Where was the old one?
RH: Over at that old Fritter house. Back of this one.
They tore it down. Fe llow bought it, tore it down and built
him a new house.
HOOVER 8
RH: (discussion of sites . Of no use unless we know where
they are .)
A nigger fellow bought this p lace here. He died of a
heart attack a while back. He was well up in the money . He
had 3 ranches. That one out here that used to belong to
(Happy?) Shahan, he bought that one. Then he had one up at
the head of ? Creek and then one up in the Panhandle. He
had a reason for that money because two old white women had
raised him when he was a little old kid"':-raised him up and
put him in business.
MM: You don't remember his name, I guess? And he grew up in
Houston?
RH: They used to come up here a lot. Well acquainted with
them. They liked to go to Mexico when they come down here.
He was always afraid they'd bring something they weren't
supposed to bring because those old ladies used to drink a
little bit and they was liable to do anything.
M!-1 : (l